The 48 Laws of Power: Meditations

The 48 Laws of Power is one of my favorite books. (It made my 15 books list.) It contains a bit of psychology, historical anecdotes, and some suggestions on how to behave in certain situations.

It is not a good book -- some might call it an evil book. It is with some irony that I'm considering writing a series of posts going through them. Call it an effort in personal development, call it a waste of time. Call it misplaced yearnings for religion. I find it a fun book, even though I think I would never live in the manner that it suggests. It's too different from who I am today.

But therein lies the draw. Could I adopt this mindset? And once adopted, could I safely cast it off? I think that I have labored among a false view of the world and myself. Would this simply be another false perspective? For those who don't know, I could succinctly call it "popular Machiavelli", though that probably doesn't quite capture it. Machiavelli had an eye for how to govern a principality or a republic; this book largely suggests a nation of one, and makes few attempts to suggest a more noble or elevated ambition than self-interest.

As I have previously written, I don't think there's a grand unified theory of human psychology or behavior, and I don't think it's valuable to labor under the assumption that it does exist, and with further research, it will reveal itself to us. So no single lens is helpful.

I think the philosophy this book outlines, sometimes seriously, sometimes in a manner that suggests it's meant to sell books to greedy wanna-be captains of industry, is one I could not willingly adopt. But it is intriguing. And, perhaps, there are times -- many times -- in which this framework is better than the blithely ignorant liberal/social justice/streak of selfishness hodgepodge that is my current cognitive framework.

If for no other reason, a structured approach, a daily devotional of sorts, might prove helpful to order my thoughts, whether they be aligned or in opposition. Moreover, I need to train my mind to be a bit more strategic.

I may indeed try to make this daily. Each "law" is relatively short. If I'm ambitious, I might supplement the discussion with some other examples of transgressions, observances, and possible counterexamples.

Next Post: Law 1: Never Outshine The Master (pending)